Cold, clear, pristine -- and right here

Billerica's Old Indian Spring still flowing strong, thanks to family's dedication

By Evan Lips, elips@lowellsun.com

Updated:
02/04/2013 07:55:39 AM EST

BILLERICA -- Kay Durost wrapped her bare fingers around the handle of a plastic gallon jug filled to the brim with frigid spring water, bubbled up from a source thousands of feet below the frozen ground.

The date was Jan. 23, a day when the high temperatures barely tickled the low 20s, yet the water was still faithfully flowing from the Blinn family's spring, located in the woods just steps away from busy Andover Road.

Durost would carefully place five of the jugs into the trunk of her car, a routine she said she's been done every week for the past decade or so.

At 40 cents a jug, it's a pretty good deal.

Durost said she has no idea how long residents in the area have been visiting the Old Indian Spring at 101 Andover Road, an address that is also home to the Whiffle Tree Country Store.

Turns out, Billerica natives have been getting their mineral water fix at this location even before the town was incorporated in 1655.

Steve Blinn, whose family has owned the Whiffle Tree and the land where the spring is located, said the site was a draw for the area's American Indian tribes back in the day.

"Many spring water cocktails," Blinn joked in an interview last week.

The proof of the spring's popularity was in the ground. Blinn, who was raised on the same property, said he recalled growing up in the 1960s and finding caches of Indian arrowheads scattered across the grounds.

His father would sometimes talk about a farmer who lived nearby.

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During the Great Depression, when times were tough, the farmer would gather the arrowheads and sell them to make some extra money.

Blinn said he hasn't come across any more arrowheads in years. Those artifacts are just one historic detail when it comes to the Indian Spring. For Blinn, the most important fact is that he and his family have managed to keep it flowing and accessible to the public, even despite a threat a few years ago that it would close.

In 2007 the state Department of Environmental Protection issued new regulations for the sale of mineral water. The Old Indian Spring needed an upgrade, at a cost of roughly $100,000, or it would be shuttered.

"We never had a problem with the water quality, but I guess the chances always existed," Blinn said.

He recalled how he had to send nearly 100 water samples to labs located all over the country. Some of the tests cost nearly $2,000. Blinn had to even install sets of ultraviolet lights to help sterilize the water.

The only minerals that are removed from the water are traces of iron, which Blinn said are usual for springs located in the Northeast.

"I just remember there was a lot of concern from residents that we'd never reopen," he said.

But a year later, in 2008, the state determined that Blinn had done enough to satisfy the new regulations. The tradition of Billerica's own special source of spring water continued. Blinn, whose family started bottling and selling the water in 1973, was back in business.

He's not sure if his $100,000 investment has paid off, but that was never the point. Years ago, he said, the spring was looked upon as business opportunity. Boston Water Cooler Company ran it as a "satellite source" during the 1960s, Blinn said, "when nobody really knew what spring water was."

The executives at Coca-Cola, however, could sense the spring-water revolution coming. Blinn said Coca-Cola arrived in Billerica during the early 1970s.

"They had a vision back then and knew that good natural water would be in demand some day," said Blinn.

But Coca-Cola never stuck around. The springs were left alone for a year or two until 1973, the year Blinn's father built a small shack, installed a pump and started selling the water on an honor basis.

That's still the business model, although Blinn acknowledged that he recently installed surveillance cameras after discovering that some customers were abusing the honor system.

"People will say that it's only water and that it should be free," he said. "But they don't know how much it cost us to make it available."

Each year Blinn gets visitors from all over the country, even from places as far away as Iceland. Blinn said he's still amazed that he meets other residents in Billerica who say they've never heard of the springs or the Whiffle Tree store.

"You don't have to travel far to find something you've never seen," he said.

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